I’ve always hated tight cycling shorts and tops. Hell, pro cyclists are all wearing onesies now, which makes sense since their daddies tuck them into their cozy Girona beds every night telling them happy stories about the good ‘ol days when drug detection wasn’t invented yet. Tight cycling clothing has never represented who I am, but I did it anyway because I thought it was the thing to do. Never again.
I had a mini epiphany when I noticed that my favorite cycling shorts, regular looking good plaid shorts from Club Ride, are only 5 percent Spandex. It occurred to me that number summarizes how I feel about serious cycling. I’m 5 percent serious (read 5 percent poser) and 95 percent I-could-drop-you-like-a-stone-with-a-heavy-metal-dad-bike-in-these-nice-looking-shorts-with-leg-hair. That’s the cyclist I aspire to be. I look up to the bike messengers who laugh their asses off at spandex posers. Those guys live on their bike every day. They could out maneuver and out pace most of the pros in the peloton. They’d never take a job that pays a fraction of others just to be on their bike every fucking day. That pure, absolute love of cycling that permeates messenger mentality appeals to me way more than any over-priced Spandex + carbon mentality. That’s why so many swear by fixies because the feeling of being one with the bike is so complete, which I can now personally confirm having ridden my first fixie two months ago.
The truth is I’ve always been a bike messenger at heart. In fact, I’m looking forward to spending my money saved from live streaming on a good fixie and riding it every day until I could actually do the messenger thing. When I was young I just didn’t know how to go about living the messenger life in Utah. I ended up eventually doing crits and then getting into mountain biking (mostly because of my dad) but all the while I also loved to skateboard (even though I was never very good at it). When I was really young I would ride my BMX bike all over the new construction sites of our neighborhood. We make huge treks to “the bumps” where people actually started to construct berms and bumps for BMX. (This was in 1978 or so.) The point is, even though I did crits and triathlons and Nike Masters competitions I never really cared about racing. I cared about speed, maneuvering, catching air, and being outside. I’d rather do swerves on a wide open road that draft off the wheel of someone in Peloton.
My parents bought me my first pair of Lycra shorts with a real chamois. I thought I looked ridiculous in them, but I’d come to think Hinault, LeMond, and Fingnon were gods among men and started wanting to look like them. I would wear them and immediately change into something else. (Again, this was 1984 or so.) I didn’t want to be caught dead with people seeing me in them. I had all the right anatomy at that age to make them look okay and I was very fit but they were just so weird. I was even more uncomfortable doing all the Triathlons that I did. God, some of those French guys were downright disgusting. I wore the uniform. But if I’m honest, I hated it.
I realize all of this sounds judgemental. I don’t really mean it to. It doesn’t have to be a definitive thing. People should wear what they want, when they want. But for me it’s just nice to come clean and give away all my spandex. More than 5%, it gets donated to someone who will care.